Leadership in the 21st Century

The Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills

How we live, work, play, and learn has been dramatically transformed by technology over the past 20 years. We need different skills today than we did in the 20th century, and educational institutions have a critical role to play in developing those skills. But by and large, primary and secondary schools have not kept pace with the changing skill sets that students need to succeed. In fact, there's nothing broad-based in place right now to determine whether our schools are doing well at teaching these skills. Governments as well as schools need to know what works and what doesn't.

Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft unveiled plans in January 2008 to sponsor a project to research and develop new approaches, methods, and technologies for measuring the success of 21st-century teaching and learning in classrooms around the world. The Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (ATC21S) project is focused on defining those skills and developing ways to measure them.

Global Education Leaders' Program

Cisco launched the Global Education Leaders Program (GELP) in September 2009 to challenge and support education leaders ready to implement the vision outlined in the white paper Equipping Every Learner for the 21st Century. The program provides an ongoing professional learning process, a virtual support community, and use of collaborative technologies.

The work is ground-breaking, challenging, and necessary to lead education transformation. New leaders from new jurisdictions (including developing countries and emerging economies) continue to join the GELP community, creating a truly global movement.

Representing ten countries and five continents worldwide, the 13 GELP jurisdiction teams comprise a group of extraordinary and dedicated leaders effecting change at the highest levels of their education systems.